Gentle Voice

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

a Story isn't a Story if it doesn't End!

Jesus H Christ! Its sure been a rough and weird night! This li'l spot in my office is where i began the day yesterday and look at me! its some 24hrs later and i'm still here. But a lot happened in-between.

i think i broke-up with my girl-friend. No. Lemme rephrase that: we broke-up. She was right. She'd always wondered why i never wrote about "us" and i somehow just didn't have an answer nor any clue as to why i didn't. I guess you could say a story isn't a story if the story is still a continuing story! That's a lot of stories! i guess what i mean is that the "process has to end." Perhaps i mentioned it to her in passing, in some subconscious traces of the mind in its sixth sense.

Last night under the shadows of trees at the bottom of two great monasteries: we quarreled, argued and cried. This was also the very spot where we'd had our first real date. In some strange way it was fitting that we rounded up the journey back in the same shadows. Where there was some resemblance of a faint moon the first night we were here, many moons back, now there was nothing but darkness.

The surroundings seemed to reflect the shadows we were lost in. The glimmering lights coming from up above where the monastery lay seemed cold and distant. We had no cause to actually be really upset with each other. She was a student studying pretty far away and considerably younger than i was (i was fourteen when she was conceived). She's 23 and is here to do her thesis on her Masters.

Thing is, when she was back in the cold corridors of knowledge and higher learning, i was busy trying to start-up a business of my own with a partner. We'd both worked for many bosses, found out how our best-laid plans for the company would just be gobbled up in petty office politics, partisanship and sycophancy. So we took the leap; we threw in our resignations and started planning this new media house that'd provide all kinds of platforms as far as advertising was concerned.

Bhutan's companies were growing by the day and it seemed the time was just right. That's all we knew. The start-up capital we'd banked on crashed. The weeks became months. Over the ocean in another time zone, she'd write and call me. I wasn't able to give her the attention i should have.

i started faltering. To her credit, she kept at it. To my regret, i did what most people in love do- i took her for granted.

The months rolled out fast and quick. She came to see me for a brief sojourn. I still couldn't focus on her. Perhaps i saw her as a kid. I certainly did not treat her as an adult. This was another crack in the wall i couldn't see.

The advertising firm began to pick up some wind. We got our first orders for brochures and posters. The die was cast and it was rolling fast.

Something crazy happened after that. I began to think more of her. Having spent an ungainly two-weeks with me, she was back in college and i was falling in love with her.

I now wrote to her consciously and listened to her intently. We Skyped, IMessengered and GoogleTalked. There was a change in her. She told me the love had vanished. We communicated still. Me trying my best to mend things; she trying her best to cast ever more shadows to perhaps make me realize what i'd overseen and overlooked.

Last night i got the message. The funny thing is she told me i could now do a story on "us". I hadn't even considered such a thing. The night mocked me further as i went home battered and wearied, tired and exhausted. The apartment was locked and my mate was in another town.

So i came here. Sitting in this very spot where it all started. Yesterday's effervescent dawn was such a different beginning to today's melancholic march. I sat. I opened the laptop, got into my blog, opened a brand new page and this is what came out.